Loges in Disneyworld- Day 2

Sleep away from home is never as good as at your place, but we were pretty exhausted, and managed a fitful longer sleep. We decided not to make our first day to rushed, but we did need to make it to Epcot by noon for a special meeting!  I won't put the pictures up here, but Katharina, if you read this, I will be sending you one soon!

First, we did a little exploring around our hotel:

Then got ready to board the bus to Epcot:

Our park passes are loaded right onto our room key, and to get into the park you just scan your card while holding your pointer finger on a scanner. Mickey's ears turn green and they allow you to enter!

Who knew there was magic in that finger??

Holding up the Epcot ball! Isn't she strong??

We had to wait for dad while he took a detour to the washroom, and were entertained by a duck sleeping under a tree.

They had a fun feature for kids to play while going through the world exhibit at Epcot. Avery picked up a phone from a kiosk and messages came to her to help find Perry the Platypus, or agent "P". We ended up in a phone booth in Britain collecting a golf ball out of the change dispenser! 

And yup! Smoked turkey legs are every bit as good as I remembered from our trip to Disneyland. I even saw t-shirts in praise of the smoked turkey leg in a gift shop!

Drummers drummed...

A butterfly garden was visited...

And my feet formed blisters. So I bought some croc flip flops. Which gave me blisters in whole new places! I actually went without shoes most of the day.

Our favourite ride was Mission Space. We went on that a couple of times:0)  But we didn't stay too long as we wanted to get to Downtown Disney for supper. So off we went.

We got to Rainforest Cafe about 6:30, where part 2 of our surprise was supposed to be unveiled. Unfortunately we did not make it at the time we arranged, and like ships in the night, we passed our opportunity by. AND, we couldn't get into the restaurant until 9pm! So while we waited for our callback time, we wandered about and saw the sights. We mostly saw crowds of people. 

Avery loved this little stop that randomly squirted water out of little jets. She alternately tried to dodge the jets and find them. She ended up quite wet!!!

We finally used up all our time before we could go for dinner, and stalked the restaurant. At 6:30, when we were not all that hungry, waiting til 9 sounded like a fine idea. It was less of a fine idea by 8 and even less brilliant by 8:30. For future reference, standing outside a supremely busy restaurant looking hungry and mournful does not get you a table any faster! We eventually did get fed, and we lived to tell the tale. And in true Disney style, the restaurant came equipped with its very own gift shop!  So we looked around....

And brought this little guy home with us!  Meet 'Spot' everyone!

Loges in Disneyworld- Day 1

The morning started off with the big reveal! Avery knew at this point that we were planning a holiday, but she didn't know where we going. We set it up like this: I made an acceptance letter from Hogwarts for her, printed it and placed it on her nightstand right on top of her glasses. The idea was that she would find it in the morning, read it and race to us screaming with delight as she realized that we were going to Universal Studios and Disneyworld!

That is not how it played out, however. We heard her get up in the morning. We heard some rustling around in bed. We heard her glasses thunk as they were picked up off her night stand. And then we heard.... nothing!  So we waited, full of anticipation. And still- nothing! After 10 minutes or so, curiousity got the best of me, and I peeked into her room to see if she really was awake. She was. And she was just sitting there in bed, reading her book. Calm. Cool. Collected. So I emphatically looked at the nightstand and the letter propped up on it. She nodded. I am now bursting.  "Well? Did you read it?" I asked.

"Yeah," she answered.

"And?"

"We're going to Universal Studios," she said calmly.

I am now flummoxed. "Well, yes!!!!" I cried! "Yes!!!"

And then she couldn't contain herself anymore, and the squealing commenced!  Whew!

And so, the players got played....

So with a last minute scramble of tidying, packing and key delivery to the neighbour who is kindly looking in on the cats while we are gone, we are off!

The rest of this day was not too exciting. An icy, traumatic trip to the airport. Overpriced, bland airport food. Hurry up and wait as we shuffled through 3 airports, several security checks and baggage transfers.

But after all that, we arrived in Orlando Florida to a warm evening and bunny towels waiting for us in our hotel room window. 

It is now 1am local time and I think we have earned our rest! Tomorrow the real fun begins!

365- March 5

File this under things that warm my heart: Avery had to finish her whiteboard before bed...